A Moonshot for Nature and Justice?

Making and implementing effective strategies and policies for nature conservation and climate change needs effective justice and rule of law. We don’t have that, especially in the places where it is needed most, like the Congo Basin. We must find ways to integrate strategies and policies for nature conservation and climate change with justice and rule of law. Some first thoughts below. It needs a lot more. Please join the thinking.

On 12 December, a small seminar was organised to mark my upcoming departure from HiiL and the end of my term as board chair of WWF The Netherlands and board member of WWF International. It was inspiring and brought together my two worlds: justice and rule of law and nature and climate change. I was asked to reflect on them.

Talking about justice and rule of law is difficult. It is quickly seen as boring and too complex. Conveying its importance is a challenge. It is as invisible and important as the air we breathe.? How does one invest in air? It’s there, right? And if it’s not, you die. So why bother? I tried many metaphors and keep coming back to the hand. That simple, user-friendly thing with five fingers that bridges, comforts, protects, connects, and helps you make things. We use them every day. Only when something is wrong with them do we realize how crucial they are. Justice and rule of law is a bit like that. Most of us don’t see it until we are in deep trouble or if it's broken. So we don’t really think about investing in it.

Busloads of books have been written about what justice and rule of law is. Here I use a definition that worked well for the HiiL 2030 law of the future scenarios: an inclusive and effective system to make rules, enforce them, and to settle disputes about those rules. Basic human rights are part of it. My good friend professor Gillian Hadfield calls it legal infrastructure - the operating system of a society. It helps avoid conflict and violence, the law of the jungle, and having to live in a world where might is right. It also helps us do stuff. Mundane things like setting up a business, buying a house, using land, taking a job, leaving a job, starting a family, inventing things, saving money, and holiday traveling. But also more complex things, like running a country, avoiding or ending wars, trading across borders, going to space, running the internet, and saving as much as we can of our planet in the next few decades.? That last one is particularly relevant: we need to ensure a liveable planet for our children and time is running out, says the data.

In the October 2024edition of Bio Science, 14 renowned climate scientists concluded that “Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.” Two weeks later, WWF’s latest edition of the Living Planet Report concluded that “We have five years to place the world on a sustainable trajectory before negative feedbacks of combined nature degradation and climate change place us on the downhill slope of runaway tipping points.”? Two areas stand out for action: the Congo Basin and the Amazon Forest. Both are critical for biodiversity and climate change and cannot fall over.

It is very hard to do what is needed there without a basic operating system. Making and implementing effective strategies, policies, and measures for nature conservation and climate change needs inclusive and effective systems to make rules, to enforce them, and to settle disputes.? In many places where action is most urgent justice and rule of law are not functioning sufficiently to allow conservation and climate change measures to work well. So, as part of the making strategies for conservation and climate change, justice and rule of law systems need to be improved and rebuilt, so that they enable, anchor, and accelerate.

The Congo Basin is critically important for the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people, as a resource provider for the global economy, and for the health of the planet. It serves as an immense carbon capture reservoir. It influences rainfall patterns and stabilizes weather systems, hosts huge amounts of biodiversity, and protects us against zoonotic diseases. It encompasses 3.7 million square kilometers and six countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. Nine countries around them are directly affected by whatever happens in the Basin. It provides a home to around 200 million people, encompassing around 150 ethnic groups. The population is young; in the DRC about 23% of the population is aged 10 to 19. All of the Congo Basin countries rank low on the 2024 World Justice Project Rule of Law Index and Global Peace Index. The ACLED conflict index? and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program show that a large part of the Congo Basin and the surrounding countries have disturbingly high levels of conflict. Countries like Nigeria and the DRC rank high on the Global Organised Crime Index.

How does one preserve nature, take climate measures, and give the Basin’s young population roads, cars, houses, jobs, businesses, education, and health, safe communities, in 21st century towns and cities? A basic operating system that provides inclusive and effective ways to make rules, enforce them, and to settle disputes about those rules would seem a foundation. Can measures to preserve nature and mitigate climate change be integrated with measures to build this basic legal infrastructure?

What about a Nature Conservation Climate Change & Justice and Rule of Law Moonshot?

Building the justice and rule of law operating system as part of designing and implementing the urgently needed measures to save the Congo Basin? By 2035, the Congo Basin will be standing and healthy, grounded in robust, inclusive and effective systems to make rules, enforce them, and settle disputes. Achieved by a multi-actor alliance, led by the countries that encompass the Congo Basin at national and local levels, including the business sector, supported where useful, by external experts and funders.?The lives of hundreds of millions people will be improved, and more than double that indirectly. It would be a critical contribution to ensuring a liveable planet for our children.

It will not be simple. But we have a lot of data and knowledge. The urgency is obvious. There are initiatives to build on so no need to start from scratch. Is this doable? Or daft? There may very well be initiatives already doing this. I'd love to hear from them, and learn. The more data driven, evidence-based and innovation focussed way of working that is now called people centered justice programming may also be of value.